Projected 2020 College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings for Week 15

Pressure rose around the FBS as the calendar flipped to December. How will the College Football Playoff selection committee sort out its Top 25 for Week 15?

December football kicked off with only two games on the schedule between Top 25 programs. No. 12 Indiana and No. 16 Wisconsin squared off in Madison, while No. 13 BYU and No. 18 Coastal Carolina arranged a showdown in Conway on short notice. That didn’t necessarily mean the tests were lacking for teams in the good graces of the College Football Playoff selection committee.

At a certain point the 2020 college football season has to come to an end. The varied responses to handling the COVID-19 pandemic across conferences and teams has resulted in varying levels of success and failure in mitigating the spread of the virus. As a result, the season has been both elongated and truncated as leagues made a range of decisions about whether to play, when to return, and how to set up their schedules.

Was it wise to play football in the midst of a pandemic? Epidemiologically it was hardly the most prudent decision, even with many stadiums either shutting out fans entirely or reducing capacity to mitigate contact. Hundreds of players and staff contracted the virus in the course of performing labor in service to the university. Yet here we are, rapidly approaching a finish line that will be reached over the next fortnight.

There will be some inevitable shifting in the rankings this week when the selection committee gathers — in person — to deliberate about where teams fall in the pecking order. Marshall played its way out of the Top 25 this weekend, falling flat in a 20-0 loss at home against Rice. The Owls picked off Thundering Herd quarterback Grant Wells five times in the shocking shutout against the No. 21 team in the country.

Then, later in the day, No. 22 Washington promptly ceded its position as the new Pac-12 North frontrunner in a 31-26 loss at home against Stanford. The Huskies are likely going to fall out of the Top 25 this week given how unconvinced the selectors have proven so far about the Pac-12 and western football generally this year. They were joined by No. 23 Oregon, which dropped its second straight game in a 21-17 loss at California.

Here are the latest Saturday Blitz projections looking how everything will shake out when the College Football Playoff selection committee releases their next Top 25 on Tuesday heading into Week 15 play.